Sally Choi says she made $300/day as 'Obsession' nears $175M, calls for reform

Sally Choi, the art director on Focus Features horror indie breakout 'Obsession,' says she made $300 per day, totaling $6,741.36 after taxes, as the film nears $175 million at the worldwide box office. In an Instagram post shared Thursday, she calls it strenuous, cross-department work and says she debated going public “for a long time.”

Choi also frames the math as a mismatch between the film’s upside and the upside she personally captured: she says the film was made for “$750K and is projected to make $250M,” while she earned “$300/day as Art Director.” She emphasizes that she knew and agreed to the indie production rate beforehand and was living paycheck to paycheck at the time. “This is the reality of most filmmakers, especially those who work below the line,” she wrote, adding, “We become a line in the budget sheet to keep as low as possible.”

Why this matters now is simple: 'Obsession' is not a niche title anymore. TheWrap reports the film was independently produced for $750,000. Focus Features acquired the debut feature from horror jumpstart Curry Barker for $15 million. With the movie nearing $175 million worldwide, Choi’s pay disclosure turns a typical indie arrangement into an incentive question that boards, producers, and financiers cannot easily dodge. If the business model is “pay low, hope high,” her post is basically asking what happens when hope becomes reality.

Choi’s description of the production economics is personal, but the structure she points to is systemic. She says she was encouraged not to flip the production, “and I naively listened.” She also notes that other members of the 'Obsession' crew were volunteers paid in gas and mileage, and that “This wasn’t even paid on time.” In her telling, that means some crew members “had to come out of pocket to work on set” for a film that is projected to reach enormous gross numbers. Those are not abstract concerns. In practical terms, when below-the-line workers are treated as a controllable cost center, the “risk sharing” that typically gets promised in indie filmmaking becomes one-way.

The online reaction shows the debate splitting into two camps. Film director Joseph Kahn, on X, shared screenshots of Choi’s Instagram post and argued that the industry is “feast or famine,” where people may not work “for weeks or months,” so money has to be saved and amortized. He added, “Art director making $300 a day is a livable wage.” That perspective highlights an operational reality for creative labor markets: income volatility is baked in, so even low daily rates can be defended as part of how workers budget across dry spells.

But critics and supporters both zero in on the second-order issue: what success should trigger. Luke Barnett, actor and director, was critical, writing on X that the situation reads like someone “agree[d] to the rate you agreed to” and then, after the film “explodes,” seems to burn bridges instead of leveraging the success. At the same time, other X users argued that studios and producers behind indies like 'Obsession' should create reward systems for low-wage crews when a film overperforms. One user wrote, “I 100% believe that this studio/producers should give every person who worked on the obsession set a bonus since it’s made literally 250x its budget.” Choi herself ended with a call for more voices, writing, “Maybe we can turn a tide in the film industry.”

Zoom out and you get the governance problem: incentive alignment. Investors and executives often focus on acquisition prices, production budgets, and box office projections. Choi’s post forces a parallel spreadsheet: labor terms versus payoff distribution. When a film produced for $750,000 and acquired for $15 million can approach $175 million worldwide, there is a governance question about whether contracts and standard operating practices automatically deliver anything meaningful to the people who made the final product possible. Even without any new legal claim from Choi in this reporting, her post effectively pressures the industry to answer whether “rate beforehand” is enough when outcomes break upward.

There is also a reputational risk, which matters for execs even if they are not the direct employer. TheWrap notes that a representative for Barker did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Still, the post picked up steam Friday, and the comments are already turning into reference material for other creators describing their own indie pay stories. That dynamic can influence talent acquisition, union or non-union expectations, and future casting of roles. When workers publicly compare low pay on high grossing titles, the industry gets a credibility test it cannot outsource.

For executives, this is less about adjudicating who is “right” and more about understanding what happens next if the incentives stay the same. Choi’s disclosure invites a practical question for boards and producers: if the business model is to keep below-the-line labor costs low, what additional mechanisms exist when the upside arrives? If there aren’t any, the story becomes a cycle, not a breakthrough. And in a world where success can amplify labor disputes, the strategic stake is clear: the next time an indie starts its build, the question will not only be “Can it sell?” It will be “Who gets to win when it does?”